The General
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List Price: $7.98
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Features
• Black & White
• DVD-Video
• NTSC
In Theaters : 05 February, 1927
DVD Release : 18 March, 2003 |
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The General Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
A smart and still-funny silent Keaton comedy
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I picked this up at the recommendation of my son who is taking a film studies class. "The General" is a Buster Keaton silent classic that still has plenty of good hearted laughs 80 years after it was made.
"The General" is the tale of sad-faced Johnnie Gray, of Marietta, Georgia, the engineer on his beloved "The General" in Civil War years. When hostilities begin, Johnnie is in peril of losing his sweetheart, Anabelle Lee, unless he joins the army. Alas, the army does not want Johnny. But a nearby battle promises salvation. Johnnie finds himself of a complicated plot involving stolen trains, switched uniforms, spies, overheard plans and a kidnapped young lady. It's not a big surprise, this being a comedy, that things will turn out well, but I'll leave the details for your own viewing of this masterpiece.
The comedy involves an enormous amount of physicality on Keaton's part. He scampers like a squirrel over and into his train's cars, straddles cow catcher of his moving train to clear obstacles from the rack, falls down cliffs, hides under tables and endures downpours. The stunts all seem done without doubles and without safety equipment, which adds to the poignancy of the action. It's amazing that Keaton didn't get killed or hurt while making the film.
"The General" is a piece of its time. There's a certain amount of misogyny in the film, played for laughs. The dainty Anabelle, trying to help Johnnie stoke his train's engine finds a piece of wood with a hole in it. Assuming that anything with a hole is no good, she tosses it over the side. The plot, which involves brave Southerners fending off buffoonish Northerners, is a bit reminiscent of that other early film classic, "Birth of a Nation." But perhaps it is just funnier to lampoon Union generals than poke fun at the side that lost the war. In any event, "The General" makes clear that watching important people fall down or get soaked with water never loses it comedic value.
The only bad thing about this edition of "The General " is the music, which had absolutely nothing to with the action. Someone evidently strung together a number of available (perhaps public domain) pieces -- "Pomp and Circumstance, "bits from "The 1812 Overture" and everything but the kitchen sink -- and called it a soundtrack. That's a pretty cheap way to get a movie distributed, but "The General" would have benefited from more inspired accompaniment. Unfortunately, it helps to watch the movie with some sound, however horrid, rather than none.
"The General" is hardly a must-see movie, but if you want to appreciate film's early stars and innovators, and maybe watch how stars communicated without sound, it's hardly time wasted. |
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The General dvd movie.